Page 89 of Wolf's Reckoning
“Because if I stayed, I’d have broken a plate. Possibly over your head.” He stepped closer. I didn’t back up. “You enjoyed that,” I accused. “You’re enjoyingallof this too much.”
“The dinner or your anger?”
I gave him a long, seething glare. “You really don’t care, do you?”
“I care,” he said, voice low. “But not about the things you think I do.”
“Enlighten me,” I said, tossing my hands up. “What does the greatPack LeaderWolfe care about, then?”
“Fairness,” he said simply. My breath caught. He took another step forward. “Respect. Strength. I would have bled for this pack once—and will again, if needed.”
“Then why this charade?” I said in exasperation.
A calmness settled over him that made me want to back up a step. “Is that what you think this is?” he asked. “A performance? Something where I’d put on a show to stake my claim, just to say that I got you?”
“No,” I whispered. “I know you didn’t want this marriage,” I admitted grudgingly. “But I think you like reminding me I’ll never be free of you.”
He was silent, and then he murmured softly, almost cruelly. “You’re right. You will never be free of me, Rowen.”
My spine straightened. “And you will never be the alpha this pack lost.”
He moved so close I could feel the heat of him again. “But you’re going to accept me one day,wife.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be.”
We stared at each other. Two storms, no eye between us.This pull between us wasn’t tugging anymore—it was dragging. Tearing at old wounds and twisting new ones open.
The tension was building between us, and I needed to walk away, and quickly. “You’re in my way,” I said.
He smiled, eyes dark with challenge, and he gave me a slow smile. The smile of a predator that knows its prey has nowhere left to run. “Am I?”
I shoved him.Hard. He didn’t move an inch—not one inch. I stepped back. Enough for my palm to slam into his chest, for my pulse to spike, and for the tension between us to crack.
“Don’t you dare,” I breathed. “Don’t you dare stand there and play games with me.”
“Play?” he growled, closing the distance I’d tried to put between us. “Do you want to play, princess?”
“We have bigger problems,” I snapped at him. “You killed someone tonight, there’s rogues out there you said, killing, and you want to stand here in the woods with me to, what,toywith me?”
His hand rose slowly and deliberately, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers trailed down, grazing my jaw. “Toy with you.” He said it as if it were a new idea to him. “What doestoyingwith you look like, hmm?”
“Wolfe,” I whispered—but my voice broke as I struggled to fight the sheer raw animal magnetism of him, and I knew exactly how cliché that sounded coming from a shifter. Was it because he was so muchmorethan he had been before? I’d never felt a pull like this to him when we were younger.
“What if I want just a little taste?” he asked, reaching out and pulling me into his hard body, and Goddess help me, I went. “You used to be my favorite flavor.”
He was going to kiss me, and I was going to let him.
I let him close the distance. His mouth crashed into mine, all teeth and heat and vengeance. There was no gentleness, no soft, tentative searching. This was the kiss of a man who took what he wanted and didn’t care about the consequences.
And me? I kissed him back just as hard.
My hands fisted in his shirt, dragging him closer. His arms wrapped around me, one hand at my lower back, the other threading into my hair as he backed me into the nearest tree.
Bark dug into my spine. I didn’t care.
He kissed like he was trying to erase the last ten years and every inch of distance we’d fought to put between us. I bit his bottom lip, and he growled—actually growled—into my mouth. The sound went straight to my core.
